Currently building a light weight documentary kit for overseas travel. In the states I have access to production crews with top of the line gear. The travel set up just needs to be capable of producing acceptable quality to be cut into best quality productions.

I was debating between the Tascam DR 70D and the 701. Form factor and functions will work fine, the DR70 has the advantage of cost. If the unit gets damaged or stolen it is easily replaceable as opposed to a Sound Device unit.

Adorama has the DR70D marked as discontinued, they do not have any info on a possible replacement as of yet. B&H has no info. have any of you guys heard if Tascam is discontinuing and/ or updating the DR70?

The DR-70D is still up on the Tascam site and available at a wide variety of sites. Adorama has them too, just listed as closeout. They may be getting away from carrying that line moving forward. Another update to it would be nice, but I imagine it would come with a significant price increase like the last version (701D).

Adorama DOES say it's a Closeout from Volt's link,which is no wonder, since they are selling it with an "SDSDU-016G-A11 Memory Card" which I don't see on the official list of approved cards. Maybe they left off the P in SDSDUP-016G?

The challenges that I see (previously noted here by members) is shrinking approved card availability and the fact that Tascam has apparently stopped updating the 70d. That coupled with the "closeout" status at Adorama has me holding off.

When I spoke to Adorama they confirmed that they are liquidating existing stock of the 70d and will not be restocking. B&H sales have no info and i have an email out to a contact there who works the vendor side.

Perhaps there is an update for this 3+year old model in the offing possibly to be announced at the NAB in April? 4 inputs should meet my needs for a travel kit, again I have access to higher end gear for location/ studio work in country.

Whoops, I honestly didn't see the "Closeout" on Adorama - easy to miss, IMO! I'm not sure that page has its act together though. It lists the SDSDU-016G-A11 card under "Key Features" but "What's in the box" does not list it - same contents as B&H and everywhere else.

Also, the Adorama link from Tascam is to a package with the recorder, headphones, cable, batteries and card. That package is clearly no longer available. That doesn't mean the DR-70D itself is discontinued.

The challenges that I see (previously noted here by members) is shrinking approved card availability and the fact that Tascam has apparently stopped updating the 70d. That coupled with the "closeout" status at Adorama has me holding off.

The challenges that I see (previously noted here by members) is shrinking approved card availability and the fact that Tascam has apparently stopped updating the 70d. That coupled with the "closeout" status at Adorama has me holding off.

AM I reading you correctly? You are refering to the DR70d as a functional machine, but you'd skip it? I thought it was the cat's meow of portable recorders from Tascam.

Yes. I still have issues with firmware 1.14. I feel like it doesn't accurately light the USB indicator every time USB power is removed. I am testing a new USB battery pack and I am not used to it. The DR70D makes it very hard to know if the external battery is working for certain. The first try in the field with the new USB battery pack, I wound up plugging into a handy A/C outlet, but the Tascam problem remains.

Tascam has not:1 - acknowledged that there was a real issue with SD card compatibility2 - acknowledged that the issue with SD card compatibility has been fixed (since they have not even acknowledged the issue, how can they have a fix?)3 - updated or revised the list of compatible cards since October 6, 20154 - updated firmware since 1.14 came out (June 21, 2016 is the current version on Tascam's site)

And now the deck is set to be discontinued? I doubt that all the fixable problems have been addressed, and I doubt that Tascam will ever do so.

Also, after what I went through, I don't think I'll ever purchase anything from Teac/Tascam again, and would find it tough to suggest that path to others.

Not a faux pas IMO, it just makes things a bit hard to follow when discussion on a single piece of equipment is spread through multiple threads. The Sony PCM-M10 discussion recently was getting pretty bad in that respect. I've been guilty of it myself...